Another year. A new location. A number of new athletes.
But one thing never seems to change with Class 3-2-1A wrestling. The northwest regional can still lay claim to being the toughest.
That’s certainly true again this year with six of the top 10 ranked teams in state competing for the regional title at Lakin on Friday and Saturday.
Scott Community High School is right in the mix as the No. 2 ranked team in the state, having rotated positions with Goodland (No. 1), Hoxie (No. 3) and Oberlin (No.4) throughout the season. All four teams are in the same regional and hope to position themselves well for a run at a state title the next week at Hays.
“This is that time of the year when you’d like to isolate kids in the practice room 24 hours a day so they don’t read all the stuff in the papers, or that you see on the (website) forums. They tend to believe too much of what they see out there when they just need to focus on getting themselves prepared and let things work themselves out on the mat,” says head coach Jon Lippelmann.
The SCHS coach doesn’t put a lot of stock into team and individual rankings which only have four Beavers ranked in the top six within their weight divisions. Lippelmann feels several individuals have the potential to do better than the so-called experts are predicting.
“We have some boys who are probably wrestling as well now as we’ve seen all year,” says Lippelmann. “There are still some things to clean up. We dropped a couple of matches in the league tournament against kids we expect to see again at regional. Hopefully, we learned a little and we can have a different result the next time around.”
Scott City’s three state medal winners from a year ago have been rock solid throughout the season and will be favored to win regional titles. Seniors Clay Mulligan (132) and heavyweight Luke Hayes are returning state champions while junior Alex Kough (120) was third at state a year ago.
Mulligan, who is currently ranked No. 3 in state, could see some competition from Brett Juenemann (Oberlin, No. 5) and Drew Jones (Hoxie, No. 6). The top challenger for Hayes will likely be Bradley Chard (Plainville, No. 6).
Kough, who is ranked No. 1 in state, will likely see Norton’s John Risewick (No. 2) in the finals. Kough defeated Risewick in the finals of the Norton tournament earlier this season.
Freshman James Jurgens (113, No. 2) is the only other ranked wrestler for the Beavers, but will likely have to settle for a number-two seed after dropping a 6-3 decision to Holcomb’s Keegan Amos in the Great Western Activities Conference tournament on Saturday. Even though Amos isn’t ranked in state, he is still a potential state medalist. A year ago, Amos would have qualified for state as a regional champion or runner-up if he hadn’t failed to make weight for the Friday night weigh-in after advancing to the regional finals.
Another top challenger in the weight division is Atwood’s John Solko (No. 4).
Several on the Bubble
A number of other Beavers find themselves on the bubble as they battle for a top four position in regional and the opportunity to advance to state. That list includes Bryce Fairleigh (sr., 103), Devyn Eggleston (jr., 138), Kolton Paul (soph., 145), Manny Turner (170) and Michael McEachern (jr., 220).
“Even though we have some boys who have had a lot of success this season, they’ve yet to prove themselves at this level,” says Lippelmann.
Turner, who was unable to compete at league because of a minor injury, will be back in the lineup this weekend. He came within one win of qualifying for state at last year’s regional.
McEachern is the lone state qualifier on that list, but that was as a heavyweight last season. He’s in a tough regional bracket that features top-ranked Riley Oharah (Goodland), along with Channing Fortin (Oberlin, No. 5) and Kane Washington (Hoxie, No. 6).
Fairleigh’s overtime loss to Goodland’s Aaron Avelar in the GWAC tournament will likely drop him down the list into the No. 3 spot, behind Kyle Wittmer (Phillipsburg, No. 6).
“I believe that Bryce has a great chance of getting out of regional. He’s wrestling as well as I’ve seen all season,” says Lippelmann. “There are still a couple of things that we need to clean up which cost him the match (against Avelar), but they are things that can be corrected.”
Eggleston, who also missed the GWAC tournament, could find himself among the top four or five seeds behind top-ranked Calvin Ochs (Hoxie) and Michael Duslin (Phillipsburg, No. 3).
Turner will likely face a tough road through the regional tournament in a weight division that includes top-ranked Harrison Gilliard (Plainville), Jason Cowman (Goodland, No. 4) and Jason Berkgren (Oakley, No. 5).
“There’s no room for error with any of these boys. They have to beat the boys seeded below them and they just might have to knock off someone seeded ahead of them in order to get to state,” says Lippelmann. “It would have helped if Manny had been healthy and could have wrestled (Cowan) last weekend, but that didn’t happen so we’ll have to make the best of wherever we get seeded.”
The biggest question mark will be Oberlin, who the Beavers haven’t seen this season.
“We haven’t seen their boys since the state tournament a year ago,” notes Lippelmann. “You always like to know what to expect, but we won’t have that advantage if we run into any of their kids.”
Right now, it’s a matter of surviving the weekend and finding a way to get as many boys into the state tournament as possible. A year ago, it was the lack of wrestlers advancing which cost the Beavers a third place trophy after finishing just 2-1/2 points behind Rossville in fourth place.
“Every boy that you can get to state gives you that many more opportunities to pick up a few extra points. Hopefully, the boys learned last year what a difference every match can make,” says Lippelmann.
“This is when we focus on those things that certain boys have done against us with some success. The boys need to realize how points have been scored and what we can do to take that away,” adds the head coach. “And we have to be smart enough not to put ourselves into situations where we give up big points that will take us out of a match and possibly keep us from going to state.”
Friday, February 17
2:00 p.m. First Round
5:00 p.m. Championship Quarter-Finals
6:30 p.m. First Round Consolation
7:30 p.m. Championship Semi-Finals
Saturday, February 18
11:00 a.m. Consolation Cross-Bracketing
1:00 p.m. Consolation Quarter-Finals
3:00 p.m. Consolation Semi-Finals
5:00 p.m. Consolation Finals (three mats)
6:30 p.m. Championship Finals (one mat)
Teams: Atwood, Cheylin, Cimarron, Elkhart, Ellis, Goodland, Hays-TMP, Hill City, Holcomb, Hoxie, Lakin, Leoti-Wichita County, Meade, Norton, Oakley, Oberlin, Phillipsburg, Plainville, Quinter, Scott City, St. Francis, South Gray, Stockton, Sublette, WaKeeney
